


Auditorium No. 3

by goobzoop



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: AU, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blood, Butterfly Effect, Child Abuse, FBI Investigation, HotchReid - Freeform, M/M, Serial Killer, Strong Language, The 00's, The 90's, The BAU minus Reid, Unsub!Reid, genius, psycho love, the 80's
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:54:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goobzoop/pseuds/goobzoop
Summary: "You respond to what you learn. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive, violent household... it's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers. ...And some people grow up to catch them." - Aaron HotchnerAn AU in which Spencer grows up to be Unsub, not the one who catches them. When he falls for the very man set out to catch him, he will have to face some hard decisions- Will he choose the the right path this time around, or will he keep on the path of darkness?
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	Auditorium No. 3

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Spencer will still be canon shy and timid in this au fic, more or less.

_‘Universal truth is not measured in mass appeal’_ is looming on a billboard overtop of the corner of the 5th and 23rd, spray painted in aggravated red letters, and spilling down the sign like blood. In a city like Pasadena, it’s just commonplace enough to be overlooked. Spencer bangs his hand against the dirt smudged plastic barrier between him and the cabbie and grimaces. “Stop here,” he’s saying. The cabs grinds to a halt and sputters against the curb while the cabbie looks back at him demanding compensation. He shoves his hand into his bag and fishes out his wallet, forking over a ten dollar bill. 

Outside, warm California winter wind blows on his neck and ruffles his hair. He straightens his shirt diligently while passing a sordid group of women who wolf-while to his back as he hones in on a singular leopard-clad woman smoking a Marlboro Red Menthol.

“Hey, honey,” she drawls around the Red. “Well aren’t you somethin’? What’s a boy like you doing ‘round here?” Her voice comes out husky and tainted with substances; Spencer can think of three different drugs very likely to be coursing through her system. 

He takes a breath and continues to look at her fingers; the way they curl around the cigarette and the smear of her lips in an unnatural shade of red. Briefly, he wonders if it’s the same color on the inside of her. She’s looking at him expectantly but his voice feels trapped inside. He can’t form a single sentence, afraid if he does it will come out in a series of intelligible stutters. Everything is pent up and pulsing. 

He doesn’t meet her eyes, even when she’s speaking to him again, “You legal, Darlin’? You look too sweet to be ‘round this part of town. I can show you a good time if you are. I never get ‘em this pretty.” She reaches out to his face with those fingers, nails shaped like talons and painted with layer upon layer of artificial color, and, in a moment of abject horror, he swats it away. “Don’t _touch_ me,” he gasps.

 _Suddenly his mother’s hand was against his skin, bruising, gripping, biting. “You stupid little boy. Can’t you leave me alone for five fucking minutes?” She tightened her grip around his forearm, nearly all skin and bone, and flung him against the kitchen counter. He hit it with a sickening crack, fell to the floor in a heap. “I never wanted children, and here I am stuck with_ you. _I wish I never had you.”_

“Oh, honey.” She laughs. “Shy, huh? This ain't gonna work if you don’t let me touch you... But don’t worry, I can make you feel real nice.” Again, she’s coming closer, a sickly sweet smile played out on her blood-red lips, and Spencer shivers from head to toe despite the winter heat. 

“I _said,”_ he seethes, and pushes her back against the brick wall behind her- She thuds mutely into and groans; there’s a shocked expression on her face. “Don’t _touch_ me.”

_Spencer cradled his arm to his chest; the entire thing hung limp against him. The force of the blow completely dislocated his shoulder from its socket. It hardly registered to him as he scrambled back, nowhere to run, with his Mother looming overtop of him. A sick frown creased her face, eyebrows drawn down, eyes piercing and filled with hate._

Before she can scream, though Spencer is certain she wouldn’t draw that much attention to herself anyway being on the wrong side of the law already, she only stares back at him at he plunges a CRKT Ultima Fixed Blade Knife with a 4.95 inch full-tang blade and five sharp serrations about the base that allow for smooth slicing, into her midsection. Her breath hitches and the muscles of her abdomen quiver around his blade as he presses in and yanks up at the same time, creating a deep tear from right above her navel to just below her sternum. 

_He hated when his Mom got like this. He didn’t know what he did wrong to make her angry…_

Blood seeps out in a steady gush, spurting forcefully as he withdrawals the blade wraps it in a clean white towel. It’s deposited into his bag with shaking fingers. The blood is _disgusting_. She’s _vile_ and her hands are clutching at his upper arms with fingers that are digging into his skin. He shakes them off. Looking only at the periphery of her face, never the eyes- he doesn't want to look at the eyes- he sears the trembling lips, creased forehead, and tense, parted jaw in his memory. 

_She reached down and grabbed him by the neck. “If you keep acting like this, no one is ever going to love you,” she hissed. “Disgusting little child.” His head banged hard against the wooden cabinet and his vision swam black and gray._

‘Last Stop, This time’ by the Eels plays faintly the next street over, spilling out of the open door of a bar. Spencer is passing it within minutes, leaving the crumpled body of the woman he killed laying in a pool of her own blood. He wishes the music wouldn’t pierce through him so _loudly_. 

The women he passed earlier are starting to scream, his legs are beginning to shake, and the music is getting softer and softer as he turns at the corner of 7th and 25th, then climbs onto the disgustingly grimy steps of the Metro Orange Line heading for uptown LA. It will take twenty three minutes to ride the bus, walk the short distance from the drop off location to campus, and reach his dorm on the south western section. Then he can wash his hands. 

_It was hard to tell what was happening, only half aware of the world around him, as he was lifted up and thrown hard into a tiny, dark space. His shoulder throbbed; he landed right on it. He cried out in pain, cried for his mother. The cabinet door shut. He heard a click._

There are no sirens as the bus rumbles to life, engine humming and whirring, and shoots down the street. 

Euphoria is one hell of a drug, it brought him all the way home in one piece, but it doesn’t last long. By the time Spencer shuts the door to his dorm behind him, he’s bathed in a thick layer of dread. Technically, what he’s _done_ has gone rather smoothly, all things considered. However, the congealed blood sticking to his hands is making him sick. 

_“Mom!”_

He grabs the untouched Jergens bar soap off the bathroom counter and scrubs his hands under the running faucet. Pinkish, red blood flows down the drain. He hates it. Itchy, crawling germs are squiggling on his skin, mocking him. They’re stuck on, he can’t get them off. Fingernails bite into his palms as he scrubs. Bile is rising in his throat like the crescendo to a symphony. 

“No, no, no, no, no,” he repeats on loop. “No, no, no.”

_“Please,” he begged. “Mom, please, no!”_

It won’t come off. They’re stained. 

_“Mom!”_

He scrubs, scrubs.

_She didn’t come back for days._


End file.
